I don't think what you're doing is offensive, any more than it would have been offensive, 30 years ago when everything was done on paper, to send out invitations to a dozen people to the wedding and separate invitations to 100 (including those dozen) to a reception. [For those dozen, I believe that it was proper to include both invitations in one envelope.] If someone then heard, say, the bride's sister mention the wedding, that didn't mean they were invited to both.
I gather the reverse was sometimes done: a wedding was considered open to the entire congregation, which could mean most of the residents of a village, without that obliging the people getting married, or their parents, to feed anyone who chose to show up.
From what I've seen here, you are quite capable of saying "I'm sorry to have confused you, but the invitation is to the reception. We're having a very small, low-key ceremony, with only a few people, and couldn't invite everyone we wanted. I do hope you'll come to the reception" in a polite fashion.
Sure, someone might take offense to that. Someone else might take offense to hearing that a person they know casually is getting married thousands of miles away without inviting them. That is their problem.
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Date: 2008-12-02 12:17 am (UTC)I gather the reverse was sometimes done: a wedding was considered open to the entire congregation, which could mean most of the residents of a village, without that obliging the people getting married, or their parents, to feed anyone who chose to show up.
From what I've seen here, you are quite capable of saying "I'm sorry to have confused you, but the invitation is to the reception. We're having a very small, low-key ceremony, with only a few people, and couldn't invite everyone we wanted. I do hope you'll come to the reception" in a polite fashion.
Sure, someone might take offense to that. Someone else might take offense to hearing that a person they know casually is getting married thousands of miles away without inviting them. That is their problem.